Waking Dreams
by shoret
Summary: This is the moment that Lily changed her mind about James inspired by the photo that I made into the cover art of this fic. JP/LE. Cover art link in my profile! Complete!


DISCLAIMER:Anything you recognize isn't mine besides I am a poor college student who owns nothing so suing me would be pointless.

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Waking Dreams

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_My favorite moment of the day is the brief minutes between waking and dreams. In that short span when the dream world encroaches on reality everything seems possible. The day is golden with opportunity and hope is in excess. This utopious feeling usually fades as the dreams do but then there are the days that capture the spirit of dreaming and become perfect memories._

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"Lily can I ask you a really big favor?" Alice asked her long time friend as Lily walked through the door.

"Umm…" Lily took in Alice's panicked expression carefully before answering. Her friend's soft brown eyes here wide with worry and upon glancing at Alice's nails Lily saw that they were chewed down to the quick. "What's wrong, Alice?"

"Will you please please please come to Frank's with me? Mom won't let me go unless another girl goes so – will you?" Alice was hoping slightly from foot to foot as she asked Lily to be her pseudo chaperone.

Lily smiled at her dirty blonde best friend before engulfing Alice in a hug. "Of course I'll go, silly."

"Really?" Alice beamed at Lily. "Oh good I was so afraid you would say no since James-"

Lily froze, "Potter?"

"–is going to be there."

"Alice wait. James Potter is going to be there?" Alice nodded hesitantly. "Alice," Lily whined, "you know summer is my vacation. Do we have too?"

Alice poked out her bottom lip as she began to beg, "Oh please Lily. Please! I promise to make it up to you. Please please please-"

Lily threw her hands into the air, "Okay, okay. You win. I'll go." A half hour later Lily and Alice were in front of Frank Longbottom's door. "I can't believe I actually agreed to this. A whole day with Potter." Lily glared over at Alice as Alice rang the door bell, "You better not ditch me with him while you run off to snog Frank."

Alice was about to comment when the door was flung open by an average sized boy with straight ash hair. Alice smiled shyly up at him, "Hi, Frank."

The boy stared at Alice in return. "Hey, Alice. I'm so glad you could come."

Lily looked between the two love-struck teens and sighed. She was going to be ditched today for sure. "Hello, Frank." No response. No eye contact. This wasn't a good sign. Lily cleared her throat loudly startling the new couple. "Mind if we come in?"

Frank stepped out of the way suddenly, "Oh yeah, of course, sorry how rude of me." He blushed as he held the door open for his guests. "We were just hanging out by the pool. Have you ever heard of a pool before Alice?"

Alice grew up in a traditional pureblood family like Frank and had no idea what a pool was. "No what is it?"

"Well it's like a lake, but the bottom is cement and you don't have to worry about creatures being in it. My parents stayed at a hotel that had one on their 'muggle vacation' and liked it so much they decided to install one."

By this point Frank had lead to the two girls out into his back yard, which looked more like a small field in the middle of a forest then a back yard, and over to a concrete filled hole. Alice looked at it in confusion, "How are you supposed to swim in it?"

Frank laughed, "We have to put water in it first, but the muggles who put it in said that we can't put in any water for at least 24 hours so …"

Frank continued to talk but Lily was oblivious to what it was about because at that moment James Potter, bane of her existence, decided to join them. Lily wasn't blinded enough by her hatred not to notice how beautiful James was. He had an inner light that seemed to shine out of him and massive amounts of charisma, or animal magnetism as she liked to call it, but that still wasn't enough to make up for his complete lack of sustenance. She refused to date a pretty face with nothing behind it.

Two hours later and the day had actually become worse than Lily thought it could. Frank and Alice were having their own personal conversation while James and Lily sat in silence at the edge of the pool. James had tried to initiate conversation a few times, but Lily had shut him down immediately. Finally he gave up and the silence ensued.

James sighed and scooted around a little on the tile ledge. Lily could tell he was about to attempt to start a conversation again and rolled her eyes. "Why is it that you won't go out with me, Evans?"

This took her by surprise and Lily froze in confusion with her mouth open for a second. Why did she refuse him? She had all of her arguments listed in her head, but with the full power of his hazel stare she couldn't recall one of them. He seemed so frustrated and confused that all of her reasons vanished in the face of her own curiosity as to why he tried so hard to get her to go out with him. "Why do you want me to go out with you?"

James smiled without exposing a glimpse of his teeth. "I asked first."

Lily glared. "Well I'm not answering."

They drifted into silence again. Minutes past before Lily heard James' low voice, "At first it was because of your hair." Lily looked sharply over at her neighbor. James' eyes were focused on the drain at the bottom of the pool. "I liked the way the sun reflected off of it. It reminds me of warmth." James' eyes flickered to her hair and then back to the drain. "Red's my favorite color, you know, but I'm not sure if it is of you or just because I like it. Then I liked you even more when we got older. I noticed that a lot of the girls started treating me different in fourth year. They got flirtier and their close got tighter. I was waiting for you to do the same thing, come to me, but you didn't. You're uniform always met regulation and studies became you're number one concern." Again James looked at Lily out of the corner of his eye. "I like that education is important to you – shows that you wanna make something of yourself – I respect that." James shrugged, "I like the fact that you're different."

Lily looked down into the empty pool in shock. Had Potter, James Potter, King Big Head of Hogwarts just shown hidden layers? Lily looked over at the slightly gangly boy beside her. She didn't just imagine that, did she? "There's more to you then you let on isn't there?"

James smiled a slow crooked smile at Lily as Alice walked over towards them.

"Are you ready to go, Lily?" Alice offered Lily her hand and pulled Lily up to her feet. The two of them started walking to the gate that lead to the front of the house as Alice kept up a steady dialogue. "I think that we are having spaghetti tonight if you wanted to stay for dinner and you should totally spend the night because there is sooo much I have to tell you. Oh and I'm so sorry that I left you! I really didn't mean to you aren't mad are you?"

Lily was lost in her own train of thought as Alice talked. She looked back at James right before they left the Longbottom residence. Had she been wrong about him this whole time?

Alice broke through Lily's internal musings, "Lily? You're not mad are you?"

"No I'm not mad." Lily took one last look at the Longbottom house then ducked her head to hide a small smile, "I actually had a good time."

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_This day is one such memory, glowing vividly in all its glory. One short day that completely changed my life. A day of adventure and discovery. Who would have guessed that today I spent the day with James Potter?_

_ Lily Evans 7/16/77_

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A/N: Here is a new little one-shot on my finally fixed computer! Please tell me what you think. This story was inspired by the picture that I made into it's cover art so you should definitely check that out on my web page. As always I ask that you press that little review button and tell me what you think. ; )


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